Ryan Cocca is a North Carolina-based writer, designer and creative entrepreneur whose businesses and designs have garnered national media attention since 2013, from t-shirts in the New York Times, Yahoo! Sports and Sports Illustrated to children’s toys in the Wall Street Journal and on NPR’s Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! (and also, accidentally, sex furniture). Since his cofounding of Nugget in 2014, the company has generated more than $300 million in sales and was twice named America’s Fastest-Growing Manufacturing Company (Inc. Magazine, 2020, 2021). He is also the author of many unpublished works, including the 1996 elementary school short story, The Day My Cat Died, about his mother running over the family cat. He lives in Durham, NC, 11 miles from where he grew up, and is the founder/editor of Super Empty, a magazine and newsletter on North Carolina hip-hop. 

He (I) can be reached at work@youaintryan.com.